654 
THE TEA ROLLER PATENT CASE. 
( Contijmed from page 501. J 
Messrs. Withers and Wendt appeared for the plaintiff 
(Mr. Wm. Jackson) and Messrs. Browne and Dornhorst 
for the defendant (Messrs. A. Brown and the Commer- 
cial Company), whenthe case was before the Court on 
17th Deo. last Mr. Jackson underwent his examination 
in chief, and today he was chiefly cross-examined. As 
on the previous occasion there were a number of models 
of tea machines were on the table in front'of the bench. 
At 2 o'clock, at which hour it had been arranged that 
the case should come on, only Mr. Withers and his 
client were present, and a conversation took place 
between the Judge and the former as to whether the 
case would be continued tomorrow and the next day. 
At a later stage it was understood that the case 
would be taken up tomorrow afternoon and Saturday. 
Mr. Jackson examined by Mr. Withers said : — 
Before I invented this improved arrangement 
for transmitting motion I had seen nothing 
like it in ,any tea machinery in or out 
of Ceylon, nor even read of it. I keep a re- 
cord of all patents taken out for tea machi- 
nery ; and I searched amongst these, and none 
of them disclosed this arrangement or any 
thing that could be called its equivalent. I 
now look at the defendant's machine — Brown's 
triple action tea roller — and I point out that the 
lower rolling surface of that machine answers to 
the square lower rolling surface of my machine 
(the Excelsor). The cylindrical drum or case 
of Brown's machine corresponds to the square 
case of the Excelsior. The cylindrical 
top rolling surface of the triple action machine 
answers to the square rolling surface of the Excelsior. 
The plain spindle of the triple action roller answers 
to the spindle of the Excelsior roller, which is 
screw cut. The bracket of the triple action roller 
answers to the bracket in the Excelsior in so far 
as it controls the central spindle and keeps it in 
vertical position and tlirough which pressure is 
applied to the top surface. The manner in which 
the defendant's machine and mine is fed is 
identical. The leaf in the triple action roller 
is passed in through a hopper attached to the 
jacket or cylindrical drum which corresponds to 
the hopper attached to the square jacket of the 
Excelsior. Asked about the driving mechanism of 
the two machines he said : — In the triple action 
roller there is a vertical crank shaft having two 
cranks in it, the upper one of which is at- 
tached to the jacket or drum. In the Excelsior 
there is a similar vertical crank shaft, the upper 
crank pin in which is attached to the square case 
or jacket. As an expert I say that the arrange- 
ment for transmitting motion to the top rolling 
surface in the defendant's machine through the circular 
jacket that surrounds it is identical with the ar- 
rangement for transmitting motion to my square 
rolling surface through the square jacket that 
surrounds it. If the belted arrangement of the 
defendant's machine were taken off, the two 
machines would be identical in their action. 
(This the witness illustrated by working the 
models.) The use of the belt is to give a rota- 
tory motion to the upper surface on its own axis. 
I have seen Mr. Brown's machine worked on estates 
upcountry without the belt. No one in Ceylon or 
anywhere else has ever questioned my right to the 
exclusive privilege of that invention, since the date 
of tlic letters patent in 1881. I qualify the statement 
I made on the previous day to the effect that since 
I had taken out the patent for the Excelsior I had 
sold about 800 Excelsior machines in Ceylon. What 
I meant to say was that I had sold 800 machines 
embodying the principle of this Invention. I have sold 
about 121) of the Excelsior itself. 
CiV8a-c:miuiin:d by Mr. Browne, Mr. Jackson said :— 
I was apprenticed to Messrs. Ilall, Russell & Co., 
Aberdeen. They are marine engineers, and I am not 
aware of their having made any tea-rollers. I loft 
I'higland iiiid went to Calcutta in the end of 
18f')!i or 1870. I was not moie than three hours 
iu LowIqb (Jid «ct luiy tca-ryUyrtj there, 
I was in Assam about two years as a planter. It 
must have been somewhere in 1872 when I left the 
Scottish Assam Company. I took out my first patent 
for a tea-roller in 1871 or 1872, while I was still a tea- 
planter: it was nothing like any of these. I patented 
fourteen or fifteen machines in India.— The culmina- 
tion of your career as an inventor in India was a 
lawsuit with Kinmond & Co.?— The beginning of my 
experience, not the culmination of it. That lawsuit 
was going on in 1877 ; when Kinmond called for two 
rules against us, we called for three rules against 
him. Each obtained two rules. (Mr. Brovme then 
quoted the result of that suit from vol. 1 page 75 of 
the Calcutta Law Keporta, the witness remarking that 
the report there was correct.) That case did not go 
to the Privy Council.— Well, Kinmond having beaten 
you in that and his specification upheld, did you 
acquire any of his patent rights or lease them ? — Yes, 
he came to and asked us to continue Making 
our machines under a license from ; him. The 
Standard machine was involved in that litigation. 
Kinmond could not claim that as his patent. 
Here I must make a little explanation. Kinmond 
was the original inventor of a tea-roUing machine 
in India. Both Kinmond and myself were novices 
at taking out patents. Kinmond's first invention was 
held to be a combination patent for a machine. 
The four subsequent patents— two by Mr. Kinmond 
and two by myself — were xepealed by the Court on 
the gjround that they claimed to be patents for new 
machines and not improvements on machines. Kin- 
mond's first invention— made I think in 1865 — con- 
sisted of a lower table or sirrface with a smaller 
surface superposed above it, this upper or smaller 
surface being enclosed in a sort of loose case or 
jacket. The Standard roller was held to infringe that 
invention for a machine on the ground that it had a 
lower rolling surface with a smaller one above it, 
enclosed by a loose case or jacket. The effect of 
the litigation was that I could not have continued 
to manufacture the Standard except under Kinmond's 
license for eighteen months. Only one of these 
Standards came to Ceylon. The profit went to 
Kinmond, I am soiTy to say, and I want to get 
that money from him. I saw that Standard machine 
last Friday onLoolecondura estate, and I produce the 
name-plate which is inscribed "Jackson's tea-rolling 
machine. No. 387, manufactured under Kinmond's 
patent by Marshall, Sons & Co., Ltd., Gainsborough, 
England." The brass plate which was on the model 
of the Standard machine on Loolecondura estate, 
exhibited last court-day, bore "Jackson's tea-roUing 
machine, manufactui'ed under patent 34." I took the 
name-plate off the Loolecondra estate Standard, because 
the machine was in dispute. I had heard that Mi. 
Alfred Brown had been there with his brother and 
photographed the machine. In Kinmond's original 
machine the lower table was raised up by chains 
and weights at the four corners. — And that is the 
principle adopted by you in the Standard ? — In so far as 
the] lower table in my machine was moved up and 
down. Kinmond's first machine had also a loose 
jacket and an upper rolling surface driven 
direct by cranks. The originality of my machine 
lay here. Before the Standard no machine 
had a trap-door for the discharge of the leaf, and 
there was no machine by which the bevel-wheela 
could be altered in proportionate size. (Mr. Withers 
here interposed a remark to the effect that they 
were trying the Indian case over again, and Mr. Browne 
retorted that he was testing Mr. Jackson as he was 
entitled to do and would do in every way he could.) 
The leaf was discharged through the bottom rolling 
surface by means of a trap-door. That arrangement 
was my invention and it was not in Kinmond's 
machine. In the Standard machine a feeding plat- 
form was put on the top through which the leaf 
could be insei-ted between the two rolling surfaces. 
That arrangement was not in Kinmond's machine. 
Kinmond had no elastic pressure on the under sur- 
face of his rolling table beyond what was given by 
the weights, and I put springs under my lower table. 
Kinmond's machine was fed by lifting up the jacket 
and pushing the leaf underneath. Before the Stan- 
dard thyrc was lao roUjug machine which had tWQ 
